How Big Is The Project, Really?

Toledo tree (image by J. Lozano, CC 2.0 licensed)

According to John Lushetsky, program manager of the U.S., it’s a very big project:

To go from the 1 gigawatt of generation capacity that we have now [in the United States] to the 170 to 200 gigawatts called for by 2030 amounts to a 26 percent compounded annual growth rate over the next 20 years. That’s a higher sustained growth rate than any industry has ever been asked to do before

That 26% growth rate is very high, but there is hope. The semiconductor and IT industries had a similar growth rate over a similar period. In fact, measured using a different metric – price/performance – the semiconductor industry actually grew a lot faster. That’s one reason I like to focus on [intlink id=”189″ type=”post”]price/performance with solar energy[/intlink] – if that metric continually drops, then it’s feasible for alternative energy sources to replace conventional sources. Just as in the IT industry, [intlink id=”66″ type=”post”]the driver for growth in solar is going to be cost parity[/intlink]. That’s why the Google Foundation’s program, for example, is RE < C (“renewable energy costs less than coal“) instead of something like “200 GW by 2030”.

Combining dropping solar power costs with increasing energy efficiency gets you to the goal fastest, of course. Getting efficient is already cheaper than buying energy in a lot of cases. (We need a whole other set of posts to discuss the barriers to getting efficient – it’s cheap, cost-effective, and profitable but still challenging.)